The village of Janwada in Telangana’s Rangareddy district, located 30 kilometres from Hyderabad, looks like a human heart on Google Maps, with its roads and bylanes resembling arteries and veins. Nestled among corporate farmhouses; film shooting sets; and lush tennis, cricket, and equestrian clubs, it is part of a plush area that realtors passionately label ‘the golden triangle of Hyderabad’. It is also a 15-minute drive from the Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority’s (HMDA) much-vaunted ₹100-crore-per-acre Neopolis layout, a commercial-residential-retail hub. Luxury SUVs and vanity vans zip through this Hyderabad-Shankarpally road, along which Janwada village is located.

Janwada was to begin its weeklong festivities for the consecration ceremony of the newly-built Ram temple starting February 17, but the entry to the village, through high wooden arches and scaffoldings is now blocked by the police. The LED panels of the village deities remain unlit. The procession of the idols and dedication of the temple’s *shikara* (crown of the tower), *dhvajastambha* (flagstaff), scheduled to take place across the week have been put off as well. So have the Bodrai festivities that take place annually at the village’s central stone, around which the homes grow. The village’s two churches have also remained closed since Ash Wednesday last week, the first day of the 40-day period of Lent (preparatory period leading up to Easter).

After clashes between two groups of the village on late February 13, allegedly over the issue of road widening, the Cyberabad Police enforced CrPC Section 144 (prohibiting assembly of five or more people) in Janwada from February 14 to February 21. Simmering beneath the civic issue are allegations by church-goers that the village sarpanch’s husband, who had previously supported church-building, was now aligned with Hindu organisations, while they were painted as road encroachers.

Peace disrupted

The prohibitory order has transformed the scene in the otherwise bustling village, which has a registered voter count of about 4,500. The men are nowhere in sight, women cautiously peer from doorsteps, children are at the Zilla Parishad school, and there is a considerable police presence: at the clinic, the real estate office, and across the Methodist Church, in the village centre.

The violence left three severely injured. The police in Shankarpally station say 29 people, including Goudicherla Narsimha, husband of village sarpanch Goudicherla Lalitha Narsimha, whose term ended last month, a former mandal leader, and others were listed as accused. They were booked for rioting, attempt to murder, defilement of a place of worship with intent to insult the religion and outraging religious feelings, under the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989, among others. The FIRs and remand reports do not mention the accused as belonging to any political outfit.

Dalit voices

The Methodist Church is the prayer site for 60-odd families of Meedha Basthi, most Dalits, located right behind. The village that has about 18% Dalit population, also holds the Jeevamugala Prarthana Mandhiram, is in Kindha Basthi (habitation in the lower part of the village), eight temples, and a mosque.

Many Church-going Dalits are Scheduled Castes (SC), listed as Hindu in the records. This segment of the population has been generationally discriminated against irrespective of whether they convert out of Hinduism or not. As Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims fight for the SC status in the Supreme Court, many have chosen not to change their status on paper for fear of being further discriminated against.

The church-goers in Janwada claim that Narsimha had given a donation in 2020. They say his brother, G. Venkatesham, a real-estate businessman and leader of ward 5, equally respected in the area, had donated bricks for the Methodist church’s new building. Villagers say he aspires to become the next Sarpanch, hence he offered the donation seeking support. Church-going families began the construction in 2020 with an agreed contribution of ₹50,000 per family over a period of five years.

Since the violence broke out, T. Prabhakar, in his 30s, an employee at a private bank in Madhapur, has been shuttling between his home in Janwada and a hospital in Narsingi, nearly 13 km away, to attend to his father, Bikshapathi, 56, the oldest of the three men found bleeding profusely in the church. All three suffered varying lengths of scalp lacerations and physical injuries, Prabhakar says, showing medical certificates.

At the crossroads

President of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)-Telangana, R.S. Praveen Kumar, who expressed solidarity with Dalits in the church, alleged that the attackers were “RSS, BJP, and Congress goondas”. He was quickly arrested and removed from the limits while attempting to enter the village. His accusation irked the Telangana Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and its youth wing, the Bajrang Dal.

Bajrang Dal-Telangana convenor U. Shivaramulu condemned Praveen Kumar’s statements, while protesting “the illegal arrests of Hindu youths in Janwada” and gave a call for ‘Chalo Mokila’. He was placed under house arrest.

While Shivaramulu was unavailable for comment, his last interview with a YouTuber explains his observations on the Janwada incident. “There was no RSS or Bajrang Dal activist in the Janwada incident. It was a dispute on road encroachment by the church which the villagers opposed. How would someone claim Scheduled Caste status if they change faith?” he says, adding that the SC/ST (PoA) Act not be applied since the Dalits were church-goers. As per Indian rules, only Hindus can claim Scheduled Caste status and the accruing benefits. Anyone who converts out of the religion may qualify to be a Backward Class (BC).

Back under the high wooden arch, the village entry and exit point on the Hyderabad-Shankarpally Road, a posse of police from Cyberabad commissionerate and the special forces continue to keep vigil and check Aadhaar cards of people wanting to enter the village. People who do not ordinarily reside or have work in the village are prohibited entry.

On the opposite side of the road, Gangadhar and Pramod of Mirjaguda, adjoining Janwada with a common entrance/ exit, were waiting with Aadhaar cards to accompany their relatives into their own village. “What difference will it make if the road was laid or not near the church? The festivities are being postponed because of their fight, and the entire village is suffering,” says Pramod. He reflects the view outside the heavily guarded village where the flow of information too is kept under control, that it was all just a misunderstanding.